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Job Hunters Rely Upon Internet More Than Ever

The job market can be a scary place, whether you're unemployed or simply looking for a new opportunity. With unemployment reaching all-time highs, competition for good jobs is fierce. You need all the help you can get.

A successful job search has many components: a good resume, solid information on the companies you're interested in, confident interviewing skills, and a polished appearance. With so many details to attend to, where do you start? Job seekers are turning to the Internet more and more for information and job leads. There are a number of job search engines available to help track down jobs in your area.

One such online recruiting site is FlipDog.com. In the 2 1/2 years since the site has been in service, over 10 million job applications have been submitted to potential employers. "We have job listings for thousands of towns, many of which you won't find on other search engines,” says John Peterson, the site's senior product manager.

In addition to an expansive list of job opportunities, the site offers a wealth of job hunting advice and resources. For those who know their resume needs fine-tuning, but who need some help, FlipDog offers a link to a resume-writing service. Once your resume is in good shape, you can post it on the site for potential employers to see.

You can create a personal job hunter agent that will deliver jobs that meet your specified criteria right to your e-mail inbox. If you prefer, you can also search job listings by location or type of job. "When I enter a keyword, I get the kind of job openings I am looking for, and plenty of them. That's not happening at any other job hunting site,” says one satisfied user.

Peterson points out that most job listings have a link that takes job seekers directly to the Web site of the company doing the hiring, making it easy to find out more about the job itself, as well as the company. "You want to know if this company is a good fit for you,” he says. In addition, you'll want to be as well informed about the company as possible at your interview. Indeed, perhaps the feature that most sets FlipDog apart from the competition is the access it offers to a variety of business information sources such as hoovers.com and charts.com.

You need to show that you've done your homework during your interview,” notes Peterson. "Being able to talk about the company's latest successes and ask questions based on your background knowledge will put you in a good light.

Here are some additional tips for a first-rate interview:

Act spontaneous, but be well prepared. Be your authentic self, professional yet real. Engage in true conversation with your interviewer, resting on the preparation you did prior to coming to the meeting.

Know the question behind the question. Ultimately, every question boils down to "Why should we hire you?” If you sense there are misconceptions about your job skills, abilities, experience or achievements, clear them up during the interview.

Watch those nonverbal clues. Experts estimate that words express only 30 to 35 percent of what people actually communicate; facial expressions and body movements and actions convey the rest. Make and keep eye contact. Walk and sit with a confident air. Lean toward an interviewer to show interest and enthusiasm.

Be smart about money questions. Don't fall into the trap of telling the interviewer your financial expectations. You may be asking for too little or too much money and in each case ruin your chances of being offered the job. Instead, ask what salary range the job falls in. Attempt to postpone a money discussion until you have a better understanding of the scope of responsibilities of the job.

Follow up with an effective thank you letter. Don't write this letter lightly. It is another opportunity to market yourself. Find some areas discussed in the meeting and expand upon them in your letter. You'll stand out from other candidates if you consider this follow-up letter as an additional interview in which you get to do all the talking.

For other guidelines on successful interviewing, you can turn to various links on the Web site. FlipDog's bi-monthly online newsletter, which users can sign up to receive online, is another source of useful information for job hunters.

Registering and using the site is simple. "Thanks for creating such a user-friendly, intuitive career Web site,” says one satisfied job seeker. To start your job search, visit http://www.flipdog.com/.